Rawlings Street shooting victim identified
Nobody could say Tirrell Shropshire wasn’t a career criminal.
His adult record of robberies, assaults, carjacking, theft and other assorted charges dates back 17 years — more than half his life — and shows multiple arrests every year that he wasn’t in prison.
That career ended early Wednesday morning when somebody shot the 35-year-old in the head on Rawlings Street.
Shropshire’s death is the 10th homicide of the year in Chattanooga, putting the toll one ahead of last year at the same time. And it happened practically next door to a double shooting that injured two people, one critically, in late March.
Chattanooga police said officers responded at 2:26 a.m. to a “person shot” call on the 1900
block of Rawlings Street, a residential neighborhood off North Orchard Knob Avenue. They found Shropshire’s body lying on the sidewalk.
Police said Shropshire was a validated gang member, like most of Chattanooga’s shooting victims so far this year. The police news release said authorities have no information on a suspect.
Shropshire’s death was the latest in a turbulent period over the last several weeks that claimed the lives of nearly a half-dozen Chattanoogans, both gang members and others.
It’s the second fatal shooting in four days. Kendre Marke Allen, 20, was shot about 1:45 a.m. Sunday while riding in a car on Spring Creek Road and died at the hospital.
On March 31, David Green was shot while driving in the 600 block of West 38th Street, two days after a man and a 16-year-old were shot in a vehicle on Clio Avenue. The man survived, but the girl, Glenda Swafford, was killed.
A 16-year-old boy has been charged with homicide and attempted homicide in those shootings, among other charges.
Also on March 29, a 30-year-old man was shot and wounded in the 2300 block of East Main Street.
The other recent Rawlings Street shooting happened March 24. Police found Regina Orr, 23, shot and critically wounded on the ground next to a vehicle in the 2000 block. Another victim in that shooting, Jermichael Wright, 28, was taken to the hospital by private vehicle.
And on March 23, someone shot Antonio Baldwin and William Daniel in the Pinewood Apartment complex, killing Baldwin. The same night, Eric Cal was shot in the 1000 block of Jarvis Avenue.
Chattanooga saw 33 slayings in 2016, up from 30 in 2015 which was more than any year since at least 2001, according to Times Free Press records.